Doctor tells jury: This is a homicide’

Dr. Scott LaPoint refuted claims by Akeem Whitfield’s defense attorney that his girlfriend’s baby died from a “terrible” accident at the Woodridge Motel last spring.

Jessica Pierce

The doctor who performed the autopsy on 10-month-old Iyonna Brown last spring testified Wednesday morning that her death was no accident.

Dr. Scott LaPoint of Rochester also said he saw evidence — in the form of an old brain injury — that Iyonna may have been abused days or weeks before her death just after midnight May 31. He was the among the first witnesses Ontario County District Attorney R. Michael Tantillo called to the stand Wednesday morning — the third day of the trial of Iyonna’s accused killer, Akeem Whitfield, who is charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter.

Before Judge Craig Doran and the 12-member jury, LaPoint testified in an Ontario County courtroom in detail about the baby’s many injuries, from second-degree burns on her feet, legs and genitals, to three skull fractures to bruises and scrapes on her face.

“There’s just no possible accidental explanation for those types of injuries,” he said.
His testimony contradicts the defense’s argument that Iyonna’s death was caused by a “terrible” accident that happened while she was under Whitfield’s supervision in Room 27 at the Woodridge Motel in Canandaigua on May 30. Whitfield was living there with the baby, her 4-year-old sister and their mother, Heather Brown, who is Whitfield’s girlfriend.

According to Whitfield’s attorney, Robert Tucker, Iyonna accidentally rolled off the motel room bed and became entangled in the cord of an electric frying pan filled with hot oil, water and sausages Whitfield was cooking. The baby fell onto the floor and was struck by the pan and its contents, he claims. She was taken by ambulance to Thompson Hospital just before midnight after Brown called 911.

Brown is charged with manslaughter because she allegedly did not seek medical attention for her daughter until it was too late — hours after the injuries happened. Her trial starts March 24.

LaPoint performed the autopsy May 31, hours after Iyonna was pronounced dead at Thompson. He said the mostly second-degree burns — the most painful type — were caused intentionally, likely by someone throwing or pouring hot liquid on the baby. Accidental burns, like from a spill as the defense has suggested happened, would have shown tell-tale patterns and would not have covered such a vast part of the baby’s body.

LaPoint said he examined the burns microscopically and found that some had been caused about four or five hours before Iyonna’s death, which would have been about 7 or 8 p.m. — Brown had already returned to the motel room by then.

As for the three skull fractures that ultimately killed Iyonna, LaPoint said they were “definitely caused by at least three actions of blunt force trauma” — “absolutely not” a fall off a bed onto the floor. In fact, he said, the injuries would have needed the same amount of force as a fall from a few stories up to a car crash at about 35 miles an hour, he testified

While performing the autopsy, LaPoint found a pool of blood in Iyonna’s brain that could have been several weeks old. “There was some prior head trauma,” he said, “basically, a blow to the head.”

Also, LaPoint told jurors he believed Iyonna could have lived had she gotten medical attention immediately after she was injured. He said, “This young girl died from a blunt force trauma to the head — this is a homicide.”

Tucker, however, held up the electric frying pan to illustrate that it is roughly half as wide as Iyonna was tall and therefore fitting with the burns that only covered the lower half of her body. Earlier in the trial he also suggested that she had a preexisting head injury that turned fatal when she hit her head in the fall off the bed. He is expected to present his witnesses Thursday.

Also Wednesday, Tantillo called to the stand former Ontario County Child Protective Services investigator Alisha Grant and few investigators from the Ontario County Sheriff’s Office, including Matt McDonald, Jackie Falkey and Lee Martin.

Martin read aloud a statement he took from Whitfield in the afternoon of May 31 — after he had already changed his story about what happened several times. In the last statement, Whitfield claimed he accidentally kicked Iyonna in the head when he kicked the hot frying pan off her. Afterward, he said, she wasn’t acting normal, but, he said, “I did everything I could to assure she was all right,’” read Martin. “’I truly cared for her and still do ... I never meant to hurt her in any way. I just wanted her to be safe.’”

The trial is expected to wrap up Friday. Whitfield and Brown are being held in the Ontario County Jail in lieu of bail.

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